Why we’re never prepared for death—even after years of medical training

KevinMD September 25, 2024
Shayla A. Sullivant, MD

I remember the first time I pronounced a patient dead—that’s something they make sure you learn well in medical training, as nobody wants to get it wrong. They taught us how to apply pressure to the fingernail to ensure the patient does not respond to pain while holding the patient’s hand, watching for breaths, and feeling for a pulse. They taught us to take our time to ensure we got it right.

What we did not experience, or at least I did not, was the ongoing dying process. I never stayed in the room with a person who was dying for hours on end. We were busy, of course; the pager was calling us to another room, to the ED...

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